Lawmakers Push Bill On Child Mental Health

HARTFORD -- Jennifer Maksel is a single mother who is seeking help because her family has been directly impacted by the tragedy of the Newtown school shootings.

"My youngest son escaped from his first grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary after seeing his teachers and best friends murdered,'' an emotional Maksel said at a state capitol press conference on Monday. "The fact that the shooter obviously fell through the cracks of our mental health system does not surprise me a bit, after all that I have been through. We may never know all the facts, but there is no doubt that the system has failed.''

She added, "Despite the fact that my little boy witnessed one of the most shocking crimes in memory, he still does not get in-home trauma therapy to help him get back to being the fun and fearless boy he once was. After fighting the school system to get someone to provide direct services in the classroom, we finally received a trauma therapist, who has done wonders.''

Maksel came to Hartford to tell her story and support a new bill that calls for a comprehensive mental health strategy for children with mental illness. Five months after the Newtown shootings, lawmakers are taking steps to try to prevent future tragedies.

The measure is designed to detect emotional, mental, and behavioral problems at an early age and then begin early intervention to prevent the issues from worsening. Several speakers said that finding the proper care can be difficult in a long-running battle that often involves clashes with insurance companies and sometimes-slow diagnoses by pediatricians.

The bill states that the proposed Office of Early Childhood must coordinate a system of home-visitation programs that would be available to families with children who have severe depression, substance abuse challenges or special health care needs.

Lawmakers said they wanted to remove the stigma and barriers that have blocked some from getting treatment. Legislators have been studying the issue of how to improve the mental health system since shooter Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six female educators at Sandy Hook on December 14, 2012 in a massacre that shocked the nation. The new bill is designed to complement the bipartisan gun-control measures that were passed and signed into law by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

"A person suffering from depression taking antidepressants should feel no more shame than someone suffering from diabetes taking insulin,'' said Sen. Dante Bartolomeo, a Meriden Democrat who co-chairs the children's committee. "A person requiring psychological therapy should be cloaked no more by stigma than one requiring physical therapy.''

Bartolomeo said the bill would have "zero" additional cost to state taxpayers.

Maksel, 43, said the bill is long overdue because she has been battling for the past 10 years to get the proper care for her older son.

"My oldest son, who is almost 13, has struggled with mental health issues virtually his entire life,'' she said during a news conference. "He has been diagnosed with Asperger's, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder and explosive behavioral disorder. I knew that something was wrong, and we needed help, when he was only two years old. Mothers know their children.''

When Maksel raised the issue about her son with the family's pediatrician, she says that the doctor responded, "I hate behavior questions'' and never mentioned a word about the national Birth to Three program that helps children. She says she finally learned about that program in 2003 when she moved to Maine. Now back in Connecticut, she has clashed with hospitals and insurance companies in the effort to help her son on a tight family budget.

While the Sandy Hook massacre focused attention on Connecticut, statistics show that mental health is a growing national issue. A recent report that was released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that as many as 20 percent of American children have a mental health disorder annually – translating into an estimated 7 to 12 million children. The new report came out just weeks before President Barack Obama intends to hold a mental health summit at the White House on June 3 that was prompted by Newtown and other recent gun violence.

Nelba L. Marquez-Greene, whose daughter, Ana Grace, died in the Sandy Hook shootings, said legislators now have the chance to improve the mental health system.

"This is a moment to turn tragedy into transformation,'' she said. "I hope this is the beginning of a long overdue effort to increase access to mental health treatment in all towns across our state. … I've had enough bad days lately to last me a lifetime, but today is a good day. Today, with this legislation, we have the chance to send a strong message that we're prepared to look closely at the mental health needs of all children.''